No Word For Utopia?

Securus iudicat orbis terrarum, says a maxim of Roman law; which means, loosely translated: the New York Times, the New York Review of Books and the Times Literary Supplement can’t all be wrong. Isaiah Berlin is a certified sage, an object of near-universal veneration. “Few writers and intellectuals command the awe and admiration accorded to Sir Isaiah Berlin, and with good reason,” declared the Economist recently. “There is, arguably, no more admired thinker in the English-speaking world,” began the Boston Globe’s review of his latest book, The Crooked Timber of Humanity. Although he has written, in addition to thirty or forty essays and a great many le...